Inside Russia Sushi
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“Kchoo!”
A muffled sneeze echoed off the walls of Russia Sushi.
“Oh, Shizuo, you catch cold? That happen when you don’t get nutrition. When eat our sushi, sick children become healthy children. Fish children are roe; chicken children are eggs. You eat all the children, feel better!”
“Way to make me lose my appetite,” Tom grumbled to Simon. He turned to Shizuo. “You all right? It’s about that time of year that everyone gets sick.”
“Oh…I’m sure it’s just someone spreading a rumor about me. You know how that superstition goes.”
“Ah… Maybe it’s Vorona, telling her dad and his buddies all about your heroic exploits.”
“Don’t tease me about that… I didn’t do anything that anyone would call heroic,” Shizuo muttered, head downcast.
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Just the other day, Vorona had gone with an acquaintance she called Slon back to Russia. She claimed it was something about facing her father and her past self, but Shizuo didn’t pry into it at all. When he looked into her eyes, he saw a special kind of resolve there and knew that it wasn’t his place to intrude upon her struggle.
Still, he did have some parting words.
“I’m not gonna ask for details…but you are an important coworker of mine. I’m your senior here, so if you ever need help, I’ve got an ear to listen.”
Vorona grinned at that, then admitted, “If the possibility for me to visit this city again is approved…I will desire a battle upon our reunion.”
Shizuo was a bit nonplussed by the use of the word battle. But she continued, “I wish to speak with you in direct terms, at risk of my very life… To experience the joy of existing in this world is my desire.”
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Denis sensed the feelings that were running through Shizuo as he recalled that conversation.
“Don’t worry about her,” he said. “Her old man acts cruel and stubborn, but he’s much more compassionate than you’d think. Once she finds the right timing, she’ll be back here to visit.”
Shizuo admitted, as much to himself as to Denis, “The truth is, it’s thanks to her that I can act like a person at all… And I feel bad that I never got to thank her for that…”
Simon piped up. “Shizuo is genuine human being. We guarantee it. Genuine, sunshine, coastline, gold mine. We offer all the best fish, no fakes. Moonfish, negitoro, halibut, mahi-mahi nigiri, conger, sea snake, everything good, make you happy, make you full.”
He was clearly just reading the names of the sushi off the list on the wall, but before Shizuo or Tom could reply, a peculiar sound reached their ears.
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Qrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…
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It appeared to be coming from the expressway between Russia Sushi and Sunshine City—an eerie engine sound that resembled a horse’s whinny. Shizuo, Tom, Denis, Simon, and even the other employees and customers grinned a little.
As if they felt an irreplaceable measure of reliable familiarity in the urban legend, that absolutely abnormal being, still around and wandering the city in broad daylight.
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Tokyo
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A motorcycle without a headlight stopped on the side of the road.
“You should be all right after coming this far,” Celty typed into her PDA. Seeing the message from the back seat of the motorcycle, Shinra gave her a big smile.
“Thanks for the huge help, Celty. My broken leg isn’t fully healed yet, so I wouldn’t have been able to get away on my own.”
“I can’t begin to imagine what you did to get both the Chinese mafia and the Asuki-gumi chasing after you,” she typed, exasperated.
Shinra gleefully answered, “The vicissitudes of life are woven of fortune, good or ill. Sadness and gladness succeed each other. To have the pleasure, you must endure the pain. There doesn’t need to be an answer to explain days like this.”
“I feel like the only thing you’d ever weave is disaster…”
“Whatever do you mean?! Just going on a drive with you like this is the greatest bliss I could possibly hope to grab, Celty. And I say that because what I’m grabbing is your body, eh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-helb-grbl-guh!”
She used her shadow to clamp down on his face and typed out, “Then you’ll need to suffer to balance things out.”
It was just like always—silly, idle flirting.
When they were done, and Shinra was free of his shadow shackles, he said to her seriously, “Hey, Celty.”
“What?”
“Tell me the truth. Do you still have the memories of your head now?”
“Why would you ask this?”
Shinra hadn’t touched upon the matter ever since the night in question. Part of that was because his injuries had festered and his broken bones had come loose again, but even after he had recovered somewhat, Shinra still hadn’t asked about Celty’s memories.
He must have decided that this was the right moment and summoned up the determination to go ahead with it.
“It’s not like when it got severed while you were asleep. If it happened when you were wide awake, though…”
“That doesn’t actually matter,” she typed out before he had even finished asking the question. She wasn’t trying to shut him up to hide the truth. She was putting her honest feelings into each word and relating them directly to him.
“I’ll always be with you.”
“…”
“If you can sense a person’s feelings that accurately, don’t embarrass me by forcing me to type this out, you jerk.”
“…Celty!”
Out of an abundance of emotion, he clutched her around the midriff from behind. She hastily sent out shadows to pry him loose.
“Control yourself, you idiot! We’re in public,” she typed, her fingers pausing partway—she’d spotted a familiar face in the process of looking around.
“Yo.”
It was a traffic officer on a motorcycle, grinning at her.
“Puttin’ on quite a show, huh, monster?”
“Um, this isn’t—”
“I hate to ruin your blissful display…but are you aware that this road, upon which you are engaging in a public display of affection, does not allow parking?”
The officer, Kuzuhara, was no longer smiling now. More engines roared all around them, and many more white police motorcycles appeared.
Shinra timidly asked her, “Um…what’s going on here, Celty?”
“Shinra.”
“What?”
“Don’t die.”
Before he could so much as emit a questioning peep, Celty’s shadows were spreading around them, seeking a rapid escape. Shinra nearly passed out from the phenomenal roller-coaster Gs he pulled, strapped to her back, as she raced away.
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Celty Sturluson was not human.
She was a type of fairy commonly known as a dullahan—found from Scotland to Ireland—a being that visits the homes of those close to death to inform them of their impending mortality.
The dullahan carried its own severed head under its arm, rode on a two-wheeled carriage called a Cóiste Bodhar that was pulled by a headless horse, and approached the homes of the soon to die. Anyone foolish enough to open the door was drenched with a basinful of blood. Thus, the dullahan, like the banshee, made its name as a herald of ill fortune throughout European folklore.
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But that was all in the past.
Now she was a living urban legend and a woman leading a happy life in love with a man named Shinra Kishitani.
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And so wishing and hoping that this happiness would continue indefinitely…
…the living legend spent another day racing through the city.
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Another day, another month
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How much time had passed?
The boy woke from long dreams of darkness and opened eyes fuzzy with sleep.
The light was blinding, his vision still unclear.
When he craned his neck, he heard a nurse speaking with alarm.
“Mr. Ryuugamine opened his eyes…
“Call the parents at once…”
Then he thought he heard voices calling his name.
“Mikado!” “Mikado!”
A boy and a girl. Familiar, fond voices.
“…A…auh…”
He couldn’t speak words; his tongue felt stiff and clumsy.
Over agonizing moments, he finally gained enough control to make himself understood.
“…Masaomi…? Sono…hara…?”
They were practically grunts—just exhaled air. But the boy and girl understood what he said, and they squeezed his hands tight.
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“Welcome back, Mikado.”
“It’s good to see you again.”
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Through vision hazy with blinding light, he sensed their voices—and before he could even process what this meant, he was aware that tears were running down his face.
They never stopped.
Whether ordinary times or extraordinary, he sensed that behind their words was what he always wanted.
The boy’s tears kept falling.
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This is a twisted story.
A story of twisted love.
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With the whinnying of an urban legend,
or with a boy’s tears,
or with a return to normalcy,
or with the disappearance of a mastermind,
or with the premonition of a new story—
this story of twisted love now comes to a close.
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For their love is no longer twisted in the least.